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The female singer from The 3rd and the Mortal and the project Strom with Fenriz and Satyr. This is Kari´s solo album, and it has nothing to do with metal at all. But if you like to lay down for a moment or two and relax, listen to some great female singing and harmonies, this is the album for you. It`s all in Norwegian with a folk music touch. There are no technical effects, no electronic guitars and so on. Just clean music like violin, cello etc.
A great album, with a melancholic feeling, filled with moonlight, forests and winter.....
Ranking: 9 / 10
This Swedish metal act started as a death/black metal band in the early 90´s. Now they are playing a sorrow filled, slow metal with a clean and nice voice. The album are filled with pain and sorrow, one can almot touch it when listen to this. The music is based on guitar melodies, dark ones, almost doom, and togheter with Johan Renkse´s voice this is not a metal album we are used to. I am not sure if I should call this metal, it´s more like goth or maybe pop metal.....
The lyrics are also great: very painfull and regreting. Almost poetic. Just taste the names: "I am Nothing", "In Death, a song", "No Good can Come out of This" etc.
Buy this if you want soft metal, performed in a exellent way.
Ranking: 7 / 10
KATATONIA
Viva Emptiness
More regret, emptiness and depression from Katatonia anno 2003. The true masters
of pain. Just a glimpse at the cover and you know what to hear... Pressing play
and the opening song hits you like a bomb: aggressive guitars and pounding drums
for a couple of seconds, then the darkness begins.... Just listening to Renkse's
voice gives me a feeling of paranoia. The lyrics are the same as his voice:
grey with a paranoia feeling all over it. I don't know if the lyrics are stupid
or smart. A text like: "I remember one time when we were abroad. I was
laughing at a book I had bought. But you were standing against the hotel wall.
Frozen in an unknown thought." I don't know if that's just shit, or intelligent.
But when you here Renkse sing those words it's different. It gets another meaning.
So maybe you have understand that this album are a little more complicated than
any previous album by Katatonia? Yes, it is. And it's the best one up to date.
"Viva Emptiness" isn't as monotone as "Tonight's Decision".
There are soft parts with acoustic guitars and electronic effects, the next
second a guitar inferno hits you and then back to the soft part....just brilliant.
Ranking: 9 / 10
Every release from Moonfog is always intresting, since Moonfog is very proffessional, every album from that company is worth looking up. So is this.
Khold have old-school black metal roots. One can tell that from the very first riff: Dirty, chilling and cold. Exactlly like early Darkthrone and Bathory. There is nothing new that Khold delivers, but nowadays few bands create this type of music, so in that point this is a "remember-the-old-times" album......
The lyrics are in Norweigian (as it should), and the distorted guitars are very "cold" and pounding. No Dimmu Bogir sound here......The music is also slow and drags itselfs forward.
This is a great album to listen to two or three times, but I got bored pretty soon, but as I said, this is old-school Norweigian black metal and thats always nice to here. But Darkthrone will always belong to the eltie. Khold aren´t there yet...........
Ranking: 6 / 10
From the north of Sweden, Koma delivers heavy emotional rock. The first thing that went through my mind when I heard the opener "Stop making speeches" was: Radiohead. And that thought turned out to be not completely wrong after I listened the whole album through. Well, I am not sure, I've only heard 2 or 3 songs from Radiohead, but I guess my parallel between these two groups are not that far from the truth (if there are a truth when it comes to music? Well, that's another story...). Koma are not a Radiohead rip-off, but I guess they collected some inspiration from the band, and added a somewhat heavier sound. (And did I hear Kent as well?)
In Scandinavias biggest metal magazine, Close-up, "Tsunami" was nominated as the "album-of-the-month" earlier this spring, and off course I became curious. Maybe it's me, but I just can't see the greatness in Koma. It's an okay album, I might go that far. But I would not go as far to call "Tsunami" the "album-of-the-month". The album starts very nice with two strong songs, but after that it all falls apart in a boring mess. The last song saves the album though, with its strong chorus.
I guess fan of Radiohead and other bands that performs emo-rock will adore "Tsunami". I just stick to the first 2 songs and the last one. That's enough for me.
Ranking: 4 / 10
Nagash looks like Marilyn Manson one the cover, but if you throw the cover away, you can hear that Kovenant (they had to change name due to a Swedish synth group already had that name) have changed their style again. Distorted vocals, more effects, more distorted guitars and rawer sound. The songs are straight forward with no bullshit choirs and keyboards solos. No, Kovenant, rocks on like never before.
But I got really tiered of this album pretty quick. It´s not bad, but the songs are maybe too boring. No surprises or anything. One song pass, one begin......
But as a Kovenent album: it´s a step forward.
Ranking: 7 / 10
